Jillybean isn’t letting her fame go to her head… too fast. She’s still willing to slog through the Halo Story Page mailbag and clean off the gems (wash off the blood, wash off the rum). Go see what she found this time out.(Louis Wu 02:39:34 UTC)

The Halo Humpday Challenge writeup is now up over at Bungie.net; HaloPlanet might have won the overall match, but KP did a fine job of finding people on the other team to ridicule. (To the sniper in the first game – don’t worry, I feel your pain.) Go read. I’m guessing, though, that by now he’s gotten enough private messages for upcoming matches… you can probably stop writing. Frankie, of course, was first (I’m envisioning something like “KP, go get me coffee, then you can post the update”).

Hyp3r grunt dropped us a note – there’s a transcript of the Halo 3 ‘Behind the Scenes’ trailer up at Halo Nirvana. Give it a read!

DMDyet put together a small tutorial on converting a base image to a vector representation, using some work he did on the Halo 3 Trailer MC as an example. Comments can be added to the DeviantART page where it’s hosted, or to his forum post here

Last week we mentioned a Halo-themed parody of the Apple Switch ads – we just got word from Dennis Powers that this movie is now mirrored at HaloMovies.org, and is available in both the original WMP9 format as well as a QuickTime version. If you missed it then, go watch it now!

A quick note for the Bungie stalkers out there… John Butkus, a Bungie animator, half of the Cananimators (all stories on B.net about them seem to be gone forever, or I’d link you), and known online as Anim8rJB, proposed recently to Brooke, better known as Brookelyn, of the Fragdolls… and she said yes. No date that we know of. Congrats, you two!

A couple of weeks ago, Ninja 0n Fire, the Bungie playlist designer, posted a note on the Bungie.net forums which stated pretty clearly that weapons glitches (like BXR) and superbouncing were considered cheating in Matchmaking (though not necessarily bannable offenses, per se). As far as I know, this is the first time a Bungie employee has come out and said that this stuff is considered cheating – Sketch has suggested in the past that superbouncing, for example, is poor sportsmanship, but ‘cheating’ was reserved for activities that Bungie actually banned you for. We missed this – but HaloWiki picked up on it, and LegendaryMark wrote up a nice article on kicking the habit. Thanks, PEZ.

Ars Technica has a short piece comparing the Halo 2 Brute Shot to a Wookie blaster (from the Star Wars universe) – sort of makes sense, doesn’t it?(Louis Wu 12:28:03 UTC)

Psi Matrix pointed out that he’s remapped Blood Gulch with a cel-shaded mod designed by Xavier, who passed away a couple of years ago, as a tribute; you can grab the map in either .rar or .zip format, and he sent along a few screenshots (1 | 2 | MC | layout).(Louis Wu 12:24:51 UTC)

Halo Planet played Bungie last night in a Humpday Challenge – and won. There’s a writeup at HP, with game links and plenty of comments from players and other community members, but nothing at Bungie yet. Hmm… is it just a coincidence that Bungie has lost every Humpday Challenge they’ve held since KP joined the crew? You decide.(Louis Wu 12:16:03 UTC)

NAMLOCO is a Halo fan who wanted the perfect setting for his Halo playing – so he hired 4 women to paint a pair of Halo murals on his walls (6 ft by 12 ft each). Total cost – $2000. He sent along a few large pics (first | second | third), and there are more thumbnails of the room visible in this forum post at the Lambclan forum. Now THAT’S some dedication.

There’s quite a bit of new content available over at This Spartan Life – you can find links to two new segments at SpikeTV (an interview with Korn, and another episode of Solid Gold Dancers), and you can find Module 4, Meet Teh Leet, a look at l337-speak in online gaming. Check it out!

Haloplayer submitted Lost: Halostyle Episode 4 to the MPRRS (episodes 1-3 are available at ikproductions.net) – the reviewers liked it. Good cinematography, understandable voice acting (that’s bigger than you’d think!), interesting effects. Grab a copy in WMP9 format or QuickTime format – 49 mb each, though the WMP9 is a bit sharper this time around.

Over at Bungie.net, there’s a new top story – it’s a question and answer session about Halo 2 Vista, with info coming from Jo Clowes, project lead for Halo 2 for Windows Vista. The biggest news, as Frankie’s notification post headline might suggest, is that Halo 2 for Vista will support dedicated servers – something that should make a LOT of Halo fans happy. There’s more info in the Q&A – go read it! (Put on dark glasses before you get to the end, though… there’s some NSFW GatesPr0n at the bottom.)(Louis Wu 00:49:20 UTC)

BLackout77x submitted ‘Savin’ Me’, a music video set to Nickleback’s eponymous tune; it tells an interesting story. Our hero keeps fading into flashbacks of a breakup in the middle of a firefight – his squadmates keep pulling his fat from the fire, but at the cost of their lives. It’s much better if you know what’s going on. Nice effects, nice cinematography. The MPRRS said yea, so here you go: WMP9 version is 26.7 mb, QuickTime version is 25.9 mb.

MLGPro.com has posted a preview of MLG Anaheim, coming up in a week and a half. Good read! Thanks, KP.

Wow. I wouldn’t have expected this… but the latest word on the ‘Halo gun on a non-Halo book cover’ story has taken a new twist; the author posted this morning that as of now, the publisher is planning on printing future copies (including the paperback edition) with a different cover. (This is unofficial, in the sense that someone could reverse that decision before anything new is actually printed… but it makes sense – and it shows the power a fan community can have, ESPECIALLY if they conduct themselves appropriately.)